To ask you to explain SEND funding and bankrupt councils to me?

[Myanna]

I've read a few articles like this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/feb/05/send-costs-bankrupt-english-local-authorities

But I don't understand why the cost of funding SEND is so high that it's going to potentially/actually make most councils insolvent.

It's not like provision is generous or easy to get, from what I've read (I don't have a child who is supported).

Were these kids previously just not supported in any way by the state and was it left to families to cope as best they could?
Are these kids who previously wouldn't have survived, but now do because of better medical care and therefore need a lot of help?
Is this private equity running enterprises and charging huge amounts to local authorities?
Is it just inflation and the cost of employing people?

I really don't know much about this at all but I'm sure many on here do, so I'd really welcome your knowledge.

Why comment on this subject, when you clearly don’t understand education law?

Here are a few of the court cases, which have determined children with SEN are not entitled to a “Rolls Royce of an education”:

https://share.google/bnt0pWQFHFycYT3V9

As you can see, children with SEN are only entitled to a suitable education.

LAs are also entitled to make the most efficient use of resources - ie, they can and do always go for the cheapest option.

It’s not the fault of parents or children that there aren’t enough maintained special units or schools, which would be cheaper and save on SEN transport costs - forcing parents to look at special/specialist units or schools further away. Ime, what most parents would like is their child at a local special provision, where they could go to after school clubs and have local friends like “normal” children.

Of course I don't know better.

I'm merely saying in my community there is no abundance of funding (as some posts on here have been suggesting) Funding in woeful and inadequate and always has been.

I don’t mean to minimize anyone’s struggles with this but I just don’t think your personal experience of inadequate funding means that’s your council isn’t struggling financially. Those things are not mutually exclusive

You write as though SEN children are some binary and homogenous group of children. That's part of the problem with threads like these. Parents of children with high needs outlining obvious cases where SEN support is needed and then implying that everyone else is in a similar situation. We all know this simply isn't the case. As I always say on threads like this, disabled and SEN covers a child that smears feaces and Elon Musk as a child. What works for one won't work for another. It's also totally possible that support can be withdrawn from the lower end of the scale without impacting the more profoundly impacted.

Accessibility is vague and subjective notion. Is mainstream school totally accessible to even the majority of people? I would argue it isn't. Over half of Gen Z identify as ND and whilst we can debate whether they are or aren't, the point is their own perception points to some element of struggle and difficulty. 25% of children develop a chronic illness by the time that they're 16. This isn't even going into physical disabilities.

My point is that education is inherently expensive and the only way we can afford to educate our young people is to make it a system that is delivered en masse and without too much individualisation. It is a fallacy to assume that this kind of system can work for all or even most children. The world isn't black and white and most children and people exist in the grey when it comes to health and ND traits etc. With a limited pot of money we can either share it evenly amongst lots of people that are struggling or allocate more to those with the most profound difficulties. What we can't do is everything. I think we have to accept to some extent that barriers will exist for lots of children in the educational system and that's the price we pay for universal provision.

It's not just my personal experience (hard to explain but my job had some cross over in this area). My "experience" is limited to my borough and my council though.

Which is why everything is based on need not the actual disability.

So many children can’t access learning without “all the add on’s”. So they’ll either be in school but learning nothing, or very little, or they’ll be at home because they can’t even attend without the support a professional has worked out they need!

Yes, but the point persists that need is relative. I have two non disabled 'NT' children and yet they both have specific needs not met by the state education system. They aren't unique. Clearly a threshold exists so that every parent can't get on to the school meet the every need of the child. Where this threshold is and how we deal with those with the highest need without bankrupting ourselves are the two big questions.

Didn't you do the exact same thing though when lumping together all children who receive high rate DLA and suggesting specialists at home instead of attending school?

I suggested alternative provision at home could be explored where a parent was paid to facilitate this. This is on cost grounds as opposed to assuming everyone has the same needs or is a homogeneous group.

For children who receive high rate DLA. How isn't that assuming that children who receive high rate DLA have the same needs?

Or did you mean the priority would be saving money and it would be known it wouldn't meet some of the children's needs?

Age 7 (year 2) is when infant school children become juniors. Age 9 (year 4) is when they start looking forwards to SATS prep and thinking about which kids will cope, etc.

Years ago, when DD1 was in Special School, the typical 'mainstream kick out' points were Year 1 (end of free style play based curriculum), Year 2 (going up to juniors) and year 6 (going to Secondary School). You did get year 1, 3/4 and 7/8 transfers (LA got it wrong and school gathers evidence that child can't cope) but that was the general pattern.

What people may not pick up on is the class/education divide. Parents who are well educated and have resources can advocate for their children better. Behaviour is more likely to be seen in terms of their needs, and schools/LAs are more likely to make provision. DD3 got allocated an independent special school at the age of 15 (year 10) with no diagnosis whatsoever. She does now have diagnoses of ADHD, ASD, OCD and PTSD, but at the time, those assessments had not been done. A child with similar difficulties had a parent who could not advocate for them well and the school/LA went down the 'attendance enforcement' route, so she ended up deregistering him. He is unlikely to get much in the way of education because the Mum struggles academically herself. It shouldn't be.

No, I was using this as an easy way to identify those with the highest needs and therefore likely to need the most SEN support. Obviously the council would have the data on the actual costs which would be better. I never assumed they had the same needs.

I also never suggested it should be implemented as a blanket policy

The 2017 curriculum and academisation has a lot to answer for imo, with Ofsted and COVID as cherry on the cake.

I have worked in SEND for almost 30 years.

A lot of the "mental health" issues affecting young people are artefacts of an absolute awful education policy around exams. These are generally skewed so hard that even children who are academically able feel like failures. The score for a grade 4 "pass" in maths hovers around 26 percent. The score for a grade 6 in science - equivalent to a high grade B - is around 46 percent. Grade 9 in biology, attained by the top few percent, is around 67 percent. There is absolutely no need for exams so hard that even able kids in the top 20 percent are getting less than half marks. Imagine if you actually struggle in the subject how daunting those papers are. English language no longer assesses ability to read, comprehend, spell, and write coherently. It is now an unseen literature paper requiring commentary on authorial intent - incredibly hard for many autistic kids who can read, spell, and write to high level.

The curriculum review made subjects so packed and so difficult that swathes of children have little chance, around 40 percent "fail" by design in many subjects.

Added to intransigent policies around things like uniform, eye contact, etc in some academy chains, that take no account of neurodiversity, and measures like progress 8 that are entirely GCSE focused and don't encourage schools to let children study qualifications at their level (such as entry level or functional skills), and OFSTED until recently entirely uninterested in SEND but focusing on "standards" and it's no wonder our kids are struggling.

If you enabled a self study option GCSE for kids at GCSE level - a bit like the EPQ some do at sixth form - and created a menu of entry level, functional skills and GCSE in every secondary school, you would cut down on "SEND " in mainstream hugely. SEND just means "this environment doesn't match this child's needs". Why can't we make the environment more flexible and responsive in that case?

Let’s just assume for a moment that everyone is happy to leave children in specialist settings alone and acknowledge that they need that expensive education. For those who want to remove the additional funding for current support in mainstream schools for children or for the SRP’s that are attached, what do you want to happen in place?

There are many, many children who access mainstream education successfully with an EHCp and some additional funding- if that’s removed those children will no longer be able to manage mainstream. So do you then support them going to specialist? Presumably not. Will you support their mothers (because let’s face it, it’s women who are disproportionately affected by this) losing their jobs and potentially the benefits bill rising?

There needs to be reform and changes to the system but just blanket whipping it away from the vulnerable in the name of the majority isn’t a comfortable place (for me at least).

I didn't say it was a bad thing - I was merely answering the OP's question and I think that my example is a good one of how SEND budgets are bankrupting local councils. How many households' council tax does it go just to fund this woman's two DC each year? Clearly, quite a few. The pit is not bottomless. If there are individual families that are hoovering up this kind of money each year for the education of their DC, no wonder councils are going bankrupt.

It takes a lot for LA's to agree to such an expensive provision. You can't just demand it and them roll over and agree to it without any questions.

The alternative could be more expensive in the long run if disabled children aren't in appropriate education.

80k isn't a particularly expensive provision.

250-350k for an individual in 365 24 HR a day provision is expensive. A local authority will typically have several such children.

As explained, EOTAS/EOTIS/C wouldn’t be the cheap option. It can be every bit as expensive as independent SS. Sometimes even more.

Neither could parents be forced to facilitate the provision in such a way.

Those with SEN at “the lower end of the scale” don’t have EHCPs.

Over 50% or even 25% do not have SEN.

"With rising numbers of high-needs individuals we're going to have to rethink bringing back large state institutions because it's unsustainable spending tens of thousands per child per year for 10 plus years schooling people who are never going to work or live independently and could receive the support and input they need in a well-run, safe facility where they're cared for and can engage in activities they want to engage in"

You do realise they got rid of those institutions because they are very expensive?"

5% of children have ECHPs.

I wasn't suggesting an EOTAS etc in its current form though. It was a different concept where the parents would care for the child and educate them at home and be paid for this. You have no idea if that would be cheaper as it would be child specific and obviously depend on the alternatives. You would also need to factor in saved money on taxis etc.

That 5% doesn’t include those with SEN at “the lower end of the scale”.

Paying parents still wouldn’t be cheaper even if it wouldn’t be in the current format.

If you are expecting DC to attend groups as per your previous post, there would still be transport costs whether that is taxis or otherwise. Same for other provision outside of the home.

More than several.

When you consider 50 houses are paying council tax to foot the bill of 1 child, it shows how even 80k is expensive.

I think it would only potentially save money if it was enforced by the LA because I don't see many parents with severely disabled children willingly making that choice.

It would be a big no from me if it was suggested to me by the LA.

But what is ‘suitable’ is dictated by a wildly unrealistic and complex EHCP.